Psychiatrist: Convicted Chesco killer still a danger to public

WEST CHESTER — Richard Greist, the infamous Chester County killer who has been confined to a state psychiatric hospital for decades, still remains a potential danger to himself and the community at large, his treating psychiatrist testified Thursday.

Dr. Olu Fakiyesi of Norristown State Hospital, who has led the team of staffers overseeing Greist’s treatment for years, told Chester County Common Pleas Court Judge Edward Griffith that Greist suffers from a severe mental illness, and should be re-committed to the hospital for another 12-month period.

Although the psychosis that Greist suffered from when he killed his wife, Janice Greist, and unborn son, is in remission, Fakiyesi said Greist still faces the very real possibility of sinking back into that state if he were released and left unsupervised.

Griffith must determine whether Greist should continue to be confined to the hospital under the state’s Mental Health Procedures Act.

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Now 63, Greist has lived at the hospital in Montgomery County under court order since 1980.

Even though Fakiyesi said that Greist is still diagnosed as psychotic, he testified under questioning by attorney Bruce Laverty, representing the Chester County Department of Mental Health and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the committing agency, that the hospital treatment team believed that Greist deserved to have some of his off-ground privileges relaxed.

He told Griffith that instead of being allowed a 12-hour pass from the hospital to make unsupervised trips to the Norristown home he shares with his wife, Frances Greist, every other month, that privilege should be increased to once a week. In addition, the 24-hour passes he now is entitled to every three months should be upped to every month, Fakiyesi said in his annual report to the court. He said that Greist had no problems with any of the off-grounds passes he has taken since his last commitment in May.

“The privileges granted have been used very well for the purposes they were intended,” Fakiyesi said.

He is also currently permitted supervised off-grounds passes overseen by Norristown staff as he has had in the past, and is once more allowed to attend Sunday church services at the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall Temple in West Norristown.

All of the off-ground passes must be cleared in advance by Greist’s treatment team at the hospital, and their specifics shared with Griffith and the Chester County District Attorney’s Office. The court and the team have the ability to deny the passes.

In May 1978, Greist flew into a drug-fueled psychotic rage and stabbed his wife to death with a screwdriver. He cut her body open and killed and mutilated their unborn son, then stabbed one of his two daughters in the eye and attacked his grandmother with a butcher knife. He also dismembered the family cat.

He was arrested by police in the yard of his home, shirtless and splattered with blood.

At a non-jury trial the following year, Greist was found not guilty by reason of insanity by a Common Pleas Court judge after a defense expert testified that he was suffering from severe psychosis at the time of the attacks and could not understand what was happening. Because of that finding, he will never have to serve time in prison, but has been involuntarily committed to Norristown since 1980.

Greist, through his court-appointed attorney, has for some years contended that he deserves to be released from the hospital and left to live on his own, as his mental illness has been in remission for several years. At last year’s commitment hearing, he demanded to represent himself in the case, but this year left that task up to attorney Marita Malloy Hutchinson of Westtown.

According to the description given by Fakiyesi, Greist continues to live a fairly subdued life at Norristown.

He works as the manager of the hospital’s snack bar, The Hub, and also has a job as a janitor in the locked ward where he lives. He suffers from great back pain and walks with a limp. His psychiatric treatment is scheduled every week and he takes part, as well as seeing a court-ordered psychiatrist, Dr. Ira Brenner, in Bala Cynwyd.

Fakiyesi also said that Greist can sometimes become anxious, but that he does not becomes depressed over his situation and shows no signs of disorientation. “He has no self-injurious behavior, or threats of a homicidal nature,” the doctor testified.

Fakiyesi said his treatment team had asked for permission to start discussing what kind of plans might be made for Greist if he is ever released from the hospital, but that there was no move to begin a formal transfer program.

“The plan is only to continue, with the permission of the court, to see if we now have more off-grounds passes from Mr. Greist so that he may have more community participation in the future,” Fakiyesi said.

Deputy District Attorney Peter Hobart, who represents the state in asking that Greist not be released, asked Fakiyesi about a few incidents at the hospital that had been reported involving Greist.

In one case, Greist was reprimanded for trying to get access to a locked mailbox in the ward where he lives. In another instance, he was spoken to by staff about having thrown another patient out of The Hub for a minor infraction.

Hobart also noted in his questioning of Fakiyesi that Greist continues to take regular, and frequent, doses of Percocet for his back pain, and that it was Greist’s drug use in 1978 that led to his psychic break and the violence he caused.

Hobart also raised concern about a letter that had been sent to the prosecution’s psychiatric expert. Dr. Barbara Ziv of Philadelphia, and signed by both Richard and Frances Greist. Ziv has for some years opposed Greist’s release, testifying that she believed that he was not taking his psychiatric counseling seriously and had deeper mental health problems than others allowed for.

In the February 2013 letter, there is mention made to Ziv about testifying truthfully and the phrase “a life for a life, and eye for an eye” from the biblical Book of Deuteronomy.

Hutchinson, however, contended that the letter was written by Frances Greist to express her feelings, and that Richard Greist was not the author. She also noted that the letter had been sent last year before the last commitment hearing.